And then they were running across the rocks, making for the Snooper; after a few minutes’ climbing, they could see the little jet where they left it, gleaming in the fading sunlight, and they realized, almost with a shock, that they had been in the tunnel almost the whole Titan day. The guard finally reached the top of the scaffolding, and was shooting again, but the boys clambered into the cockpit of the little ship, and the motor was warmed before the guard got fifty feet. With a burst of blue flame the ship shot forward, and Tuck leaned back, his heart pounding in his throat as he felt the Snoopers nose rise into the sky.
A few moments later they were landing outside the air lock of the colony bubble, just as the lights were going on for the Titan night.
The night, Tuck reflected grimly, which bid fair to be the colony’s last—
Chapter 16
“I’ll Back You to a Man!”
Anson Torm paced back and forth in the little stone cabin, his gray head bent, hands gripped tightly behind his back. He was alone—he had been alone for over an hour, listening to the minutes tick by, steadily, certainly. On the table lay a pile of papers; he stopped and leafed through them wearily. His fingers trembled on the typewritten sheets, and he thought, here it is—the last duty in a lifetime of work. Here is the dotted line, Anson, for you to sign your colony’s death warrant. Cortell has won, in the end, and you have lost, but it is you who must check the supply lists, it is you who must make sure that all the supplies are stored, all final details completed. Not far away, a ship stands waiting to carry your people to limbo, and soon they will wait no longer; soon they will file aboard—
The old man stared bitterly at the table top. He wanted to smash his fist down and roar with anger and frustration. If only they would think! If only he could make them understand what they were doing—And yet he knew it would do no good. This was the end of the line. The colonists would no longer support him, they believed Cortell when he told them that the time for revolt had come. And perhaps it had. Even his closest friend, Ned Miller, who fought at his side all these stormy years of leading the colony, had said, “There’s nothing more we can do, Anson. If we oppose him now, Cortell will only kill us, and carry out the plan anyway—”
“But there must be some other way!”
“I don’t know what. We knew it would come someday. You knew it, and I knew it.”
And Torm had spread his hands helplessly, and sank down in the chair, a tired, beaten old man. “But it need never have come,” he said wearily. “Its so senseless, so hopeless—”
It was true. He knew in his heart that it was hopeless. The Colonel from Earth had dealt the last blow with his ultimatum, even as Cortell’s men had moved through the colony, spreading hatred, whispering rebellion, arousing the colonists to fury. And now the end had come—there was no answer, no other way.
He sank down to the table, taking the first supply list from the pile with a heavy heart. And then the door burst open, and David was in the room, followed by the son of the Earth Colonel. Anson looked up, startled by the air of excitement that swept in the door with the boys; he saw their eyes go to the check lists on the table, and back to his face, and he felt a pang of shame. “Dad—you’ve got to come—”
Torm’s eyebrows went up. “Come? Where?”
“To the Earth ship—now. Please, Dad, there’s no time to waste!” There was an urgency in his son’s voice, a frantic urgency Anson had never heard before. It struck a chord of hope in Anson’s mind, but he shook his head wearily. “There’s nothing we can gain at the Earth ship, son. There’s no hope there or anywhere.”
“Dad, we’ve found the star-ship—”
Anson Torm lurched to his feet as if he had been struck. “That’s enough, David!” he snapped. “What kind of nonsense—”
David Torm shook his head, glancing at Tuck. “He already knows, Dad, there’s no reason to be quiet. We were together, we couldn’t have done it by ourselves, neither of us. We found the ship, and we know where Cortell is hiding.”
Torm’s face was gray. “David, David—”
“Dad, we’ve got to see Colonel Benedict. We found Cortell’s hide-out, we heard what he was saying—” Swiftly he told his father what they had heard, Cortell’s plan of treachery. The Colony leader’s face grew darker as he listened; he began trembling so violently he could hardly control his hands. “There’s no mistake, David? You couldn’t have been wrong?”
“There was no mistake, believe me—”
And then Torm was on his feet, struggling into a pressure suit, his eyes haunted. “We’ll have to get to the Earth ship,” he said. “We can get a half-track—”
“There’s not enough time for that. The Snooper will carry us, if we’re lucky.”
Approximately five minutes later the little jet plane was swooping up into the purple sky away from the colony, leaving a trail of snow in its wake, heading like a carefully aimed arrow for the rocket ship from Earth at the Rocket Landing—
Cortell had been sleeping when the guard burst into the hide-out from the ship tunnel, panting, clutching his side, dragging a leg after him as he walked. He staggered to a seat, gasping. “They ripped open the ship’s camouflage,” he choked, “broke the whole thing open, and they got away, I couldn’t stop them—” Cortell had the man by the throat, shaking him savagely. “Who? How did they find it? Who was if?”
“Torm’s boy, and someone else, I don’t know who. They jumped us—I don’t know how they found us, I don’t know where they came from. They blew up the Murexide and tried to cave in the tunnel, but the beams held—”
Cortell was on his feet, trembling like a wildman when Dan Carver returned. “Get the men,” he snarled. “Get them, and get their women. The word will be out any minute—” He pointed silently to the guard.
Dan’s jaw sagged, and his face went white. “I just saw Pete and Rog headed this way—”
“Well, get the others!” Cortell screamed. “There’s no time—”
“But the leak—”
“Let it leak, let it leak forever. We’ll use the supplies we’ve got, go aboard in suits. But we’ve got to go—” There was fear in his face now, fear that almost overshadowed the cunning, and as Dan started back for the colony, Cortell began packing a supply bag furiously, his eyes darting toward the tunnel, with the fear widening every minute—
Because he knew, coldly, that he was fighting against time now, and time was running out.
Colonel Benedict’s face was white as the two boys and Anson Torm filed into the cabin. He didn’t look at Tuck, but there was anger in his eyes, and a hurt that was more painful to Tuck than any anger could have been. He stared at them, and when he found his voice, he said, “Did you bring Cortell with you?”
And then the boys were talking, one after another, telling everything. So very much had happened that they could hardly contain themselves. They told him the whole story, and then of their stumbling upon Cortell’s hiding place, and of the treachery they had heard as they waited, shivering, in the black tunnel outside.
And when they were finished, the anger was gone from the Colonel’s eyes, the hurt was vanished. Instead, he looked stunned, shaken beyond belief. He sat down at the desk and stared at them as though they were ghosts, and twice when he tried to speak, words failed him. And then, finally, his voice was very low. “You found this—the two of you, together? David? Tuck?”